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Christopher Otero-Rivera -
Angel Luis Rivera
The jury in the Nicole Montalvo murder trial was selected Tuesday after two days of questioning by prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Montalvo’s accused killers are her estranged husband, 33-year-old Christopher Otero-Rivera, and father-in-law, 64-yearold Angel Luis Rivera.
Said one potential juror: “It appeared to me that they were going to be guilty whatever I remember, it seemed very straight forward.”
Another juror called the case “gruesome,” adding: “I don’t think I can be impartial.”
Circuit Judge Keith Carsten told the pool of potential jurors that the trial should wrap up by April 21.
The high-profile case has horrified many in Osceola County since October 2019, when some of Montalvo’s remains were unearthed at Angel Rivera’s St. Cloud home, where Otero-Rivera also lived. The discovery came just days after the woman dropped off the couple’s young son at the house on Hixon Avenue.
“Nicole was killed and her body was cut into pieces and then buried by Angel and Christopher,” according to the arrest affidavit from the Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office.
The father and son are being tried together but have separate attorneys. They are charged with second-degree murder, abuse of a body and evidence tampering in her death.
The State Attorney’s Office recently dropped its case against Wanda Rivera, Montalvo’s mother-in-law, who had been accused of helping dispose of her car. The 61-year-old woman had faced charges of accessory to murder after the fact, evidence tampering and providing false information to law enforcement.
However, shortly after she was arrested this summer, prosecutors released a report from the Sheriff’s Office showing surveillance footage that put Angel Rivera’s 1992 Chevrolet truck on the path from his house to Big Sky Boulevard, where her car was found abandoned shortly after she disappeared.
A judge in 2016 granted Montalvo a restraining order against Otero-Rivera. In her petition, she wrote that after coming home with their young son he had smacked her so hard she bled and then dragged her to their bedroom by the hair.
“This isn’t the first time it happen[ed] but this is the worst time,” she wrote.
By 2018, the violence seemed to have escalated, when Montalvo told Sheriff’s Office investigators that Otero-Rivera took her to an isolated location where he and another woman assaulted her.
According to the arrest affidavit, Otero-Rivera slapped her repeatedly, threw her to the ground, tried to gag her, robbed her and then tried to break her neck before letting her go.
While deputies were interviewing Montalvo, St. Cloud police found Otero-Rivera and Toni Rocker together in a car around the corner from Montalvo’s home.
Otero-Rivera in July pleaded no contest to hindering a witness’ ability to communicate with law enforcement, unlawful possession of a credit or debit card and battery. Charges of kidnapping, robbery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon were dropped in the deal.
He was sentenced to a short stint in jail, followed by two years of supervised probation.
While investigating Montalvo’s murder, Otero-Rivera’s brother, 30-year-old Nicholas Rivera, was named a person of interest in the case and was extradited to Florida from Georgia on multiple counts of child pornography unrelated to the murder.
Nicholas Rivera in August was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 15 years of probation after his release as part of a deal he reached with prosecutors and was listed as a witness for the prosecution at the time.
